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Flying Time
Mar. 24th, 2007 04:28 pmOne has to assume that luck with airlines, as wth poker, runs in streaks. After nearly 20 years of trouble-free flying, my last couple of delays on Virgin have been two-for-two. Both were more than two hours but less than four, which, on long-distance flights, probably means I am eligible for, er, nothing. I must check my terms and conditions.
And Gatwick was a fucking nightmare. Damn Orlando, I say. Why can't Virgin split up its check-ins more? One, have Florida and non-Florida for all classes. Two, have "checked-in online" and "not checked in online" separated for all classes.
The queue for security (after a 40 minute queue to check in, even for Premium) was about an hour long, so for once the "Fast Track" sticker came in useful. BAA only operates Fast Track from 7am to 2pm. Presumably, after that, the airport empties.
If you can get decent value on Premium Economy with Virgin, it is definitely the way to go. Combine it with a Priority Pass (for use in the executive lounges) and the whole experience is not that much worse than Upper Class, and for several thousand pounds less. The only hassle that I suffered was the screen going dead 10 minutes into the first move (The Departed), which meant that I missed about 15 minutes while it was being reset and spent another half an hour wondering why Matt Damon kept growing and losing a beard (are they flashbacks? I wondered. Flashforwards?) Then I realized that the bearded one was Leonardo di Caprio.
The woman in the seat in front of me was one of these fucking fidgeters, which meant that the seat kept moving backwards and forwards as she kept resettling herself (still, I saw that she read the Daily Mail, so at least some prejudices were confirmed). My screen must have had a loose connection, because this caused the screen to flicker and sometimes fail. One would have thought that she would have taken the hint from my frequent loud tapping on the side of the screen to get it working again, but, well, she was a Daily Mail reader.
I watched The Departed, Babel and Casino Royale, and, of these, Babel struck me as the one most likely to last the test of time. Indeed, it could have been called Intolerance, except that DW Griffiths got there first, by 90 years or so.
Babel was criticised for being too fragmented, and it's true that the story's four main threads (two in Morocco, one in Japan, one in San Diego/Mexico) hang together, in places, by little more than a, well, than a thread. But it makes some very powerful points and it makes them well. I thought 21 Grams was underrated and this film, from the same stable, appears also to have passed most people by, despite an Oscar nomination.
The Departed isn't Scorsese at his best, although second-rate Scorsese beats most people's best. Nicholson, forever watchable, often can't resist hamming it up as Nicholson rather than playing it straight as Francis Costello. Ray Winstone as Costello's 'Number One' was superb. Damon and de Caprio were as you expected them to be. Very much a bloke's movie, though. But Hollywood's insistence on "moral" endings kind of lets it down. Nice support from Martin Sheen and what I presume was Alec Baldwin (once of Homicide) in a fat suit. Oh, cruel, but not unfair.
Casino Royale wasn't half bad, for a Bond movie. Daniel Craig seems to get it just right and the plot almost hangs together, which for a Bond movie is a compliment.
I managed to get checked in okay, but the Grubby-recommended and Pauly-backed "tip the reservation woman $20" seemed to make no difference. I asked for a room nearer the ground floor, she gave me just about the worst room on the fifth floor (which doesn't make much difference, because the Excalibur has two sets of elevators for the first 17 and the top 10 floors) and then asked if the $20 was for change. I didn't have the wit, sped, or wakefulness to say "yes" (well, I had been travelling for 19 hours). So, that was $20 wasted.
And The Excalibur rooms only have showers. Oh well, since the baths in US hotels are designed for midgets, perhaps it's no big deal.
Also, although there is a broadband connection, the cable is in just about the most useless place possible for sustained typing. The room has a nice corner with a table ad chars, but the internet connection is only usable on top of the chest of drawers next to the TV.
Off to take some photographs today.
And Gatwick was a fucking nightmare. Damn Orlando, I say. Why can't Virgin split up its check-ins more? One, have Florida and non-Florida for all classes. Two, have "checked-in online" and "not checked in online" separated for all classes.
The queue for security (after a 40 minute queue to check in, even for Premium) was about an hour long, so for once the "Fast Track" sticker came in useful. BAA only operates Fast Track from 7am to 2pm. Presumably, after that, the airport empties.
If you can get decent value on Premium Economy with Virgin, it is definitely the way to go. Combine it with a Priority Pass (for use in the executive lounges) and the whole experience is not that much worse than Upper Class, and for several thousand pounds less. The only hassle that I suffered was the screen going dead 10 minutes into the first move (The Departed), which meant that I missed about 15 minutes while it was being reset and spent another half an hour wondering why Matt Damon kept growing and losing a beard (are they flashbacks? I wondered. Flashforwards?) Then I realized that the bearded one was Leonardo di Caprio.
The woman in the seat in front of me was one of these fucking fidgeters, which meant that the seat kept moving backwards and forwards as she kept resettling herself (still, I saw that she read the Daily Mail, so at least some prejudices were confirmed). My screen must have had a loose connection, because this caused the screen to flicker and sometimes fail. One would have thought that she would have taken the hint from my frequent loud tapping on the side of the screen to get it working again, but, well, she was a Daily Mail reader.
I watched The Departed, Babel and Casino Royale, and, of these, Babel struck me as the one most likely to last the test of time. Indeed, it could have been called Intolerance, except that DW Griffiths got there first, by 90 years or so.
Babel was criticised for being too fragmented, and it's true that the story's four main threads (two in Morocco, one in Japan, one in San Diego/Mexico) hang together, in places, by little more than a, well, than a thread. But it makes some very powerful points and it makes them well. I thought 21 Grams was underrated and this film, from the same stable, appears also to have passed most people by, despite an Oscar nomination.
The Departed isn't Scorsese at his best, although second-rate Scorsese beats most people's best. Nicholson, forever watchable, often can't resist hamming it up as Nicholson rather than playing it straight as Francis Costello. Ray Winstone as Costello's 'Number One' was superb. Damon and de Caprio were as you expected them to be. Very much a bloke's movie, though. But Hollywood's insistence on "moral" endings kind of lets it down. Nice support from Martin Sheen and what I presume was Alec Baldwin (once of Homicide) in a fat suit. Oh, cruel, but not unfair.
Casino Royale wasn't half bad, for a Bond movie. Daniel Craig seems to get it just right and the plot almost hangs together, which for a Bond movie is a compliment.
I managed to get checked in okay, but the Grubby-recommended and Pauly-backed "tip the reservation woman $20" seemed to make no difference. I asked for a room nearer the ground floor, she gave me just about the worst room on the fifth floor (which doesn't make much difference, because the Excalibur has two sets of elevators for the first 17 and the top 10 floors) and then asked if the $20 was for change. I didn't have the wit, sped, or wakefulness to say "yes" (well, I had been travelling for 19 hours). So, that was $20 wasted.
And The Excalibur rooms only have showers. Oh well, since the baths in US hotels are designed for midgets, perhaps it's no big deal.
Also, although there is a broadband connection, the cable is in just about the most useless place possible for sustained typing. The room has a nice corner with a table ad chars, but the internet connection is only usable on top of the chest of drawers next to the TV.
Off to take some photographs today.
